Wednesday, March 05, 2014

Nepali communists combat opportunism

By Theo Russell

Theo Russell and Peter Tobin

THE
COMMUNIST Party of Nepal-Maoist, which broke with the revisionist leadership of
the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in 2013, has emerged greatly strengthened
after a successful mass boycott of imperialist-backed elections last November,
Peter Tobin, a freelance journalist and sympathiser with the CPN-M, told a New
Worker discussion meeting in London last week.

Tobin
gave an eye-witness report on the complex situation in Nepal after spending six
months there, during which a warrant was issued for his arrest for interfering
in the election process after he spoke at a CPN-M election boycott rally. He
began by explaining the background to current developments.

“In
June last year a formal break took place after the leaders of the Unified
Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), [the name the Communist Party of Nepal
(Maoist) adopted in 2008 after merging with smaller parties]– so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ Prachanda and
Baburam Bhattarai – agreed to a United Nations-backed settlement that saw and
the People’s Liberation Army disarmed and disbanded, and the gains of a 10-year
people’s war squandered.

“A
new party, the CPN-M, emerged led by Mohan Baidya (alias Kiran), a veteran of
the People's War and briefly vice-president of Nepal in the first Prachanda-led
government. Prachanda’s wing continued to call itself the Unified Communist
Party of Nepal (Maoist).

“The
CPN-M has acquired the nickname ‘Dashists’, while Prachanda’s party is
popularly known as the ‘Cashists’ due to their penchant for corruption and
bribe-taking.

“Baidya
told the CPN-M’s founding conference, which was attended by delegates from the
Communist Party of China and the Workers Party of Korea, that ‘we will make a
new constitution on the streets’. A strategy was adopted to launch a people’s
revolution, based on a people’s war, and to rebuild the Red bases and the
People’s Liberation Army.

“The
CPN-M leadership have declared they will restore collective leadership and
democratic centralism.

“The
CPN-M also leads the 33-Party Alliance made up of smaller communist and ethnic
minority parties which emerged after the announcement of new elections in 2013,
and talks over the CPN-M merging with some of the smaller parties in the
alliance are currently taking place,” Tobin said.

“The
elections were an object lesson in ‘managed’ polls with the deployment of
74,000 international observers, 62,000 troops, 24,000 police, and 44,000
temporary police. A staggering 36 billion Nepali rupees was spent (compared to
three billion for the 2008 election), much of which was siphoned off in a
jamboree for thousands of observers and NGO [non-governmental organisations]
staff.

“But
despite claims by government and the international observer brigade that the
election was a triumph with a 70 per cent turnout, the electorate was five
million fewer than in 2008, and five million voters had somehow ‘disappeared’.

“The
election turned into a humiliation for Prachanda, and in my estimate the
boycott was supported by 50 per cent of voters and in some villages 100 per
cent. The CPN-M, despite having a huge range of forces opposed to it, emerged
from the election considerably strengthened.

“A
10-day strike called by the CPN-M was solid across the country with the
exception of Kathmandu where it faltered after three days, and Prachanda was
forced to campaign by helicopter due to protests and roadblocks.

“Despite
standing in two constituencies as a safeguard, Prachanda lost his existing seat
in Kathmandu to the great delight of the boycott supporters, and his party fell
from first to third place nationally.”

The
discussion looked at the background to Prachanda’s betrayal and Tobin
recalled:“During the people’s war, in
2005, Prachanda succeeded in pushing through a commitment for the CPN(M) to
adopt the goal of ‘multi-party democracy’, arguing this would pave the way to
gain access to the cities.”

Tobin
said that events in Nepal had major implications for the rest of South Asia and
many other developing countries, and called for the Left in Britain to follow
events there more closely.